I like the way you're thinking with a lot of this
wj097!
I like a lot of what you did in the reworded version of
(E), but I want to clear up something on ad hominem attacks first.
An ad hominem attack must be an
irrelevant use of someone's character to attempt to undermine their argument. For instance, if the author was questioning the truth of Riley's claim merely because he steals cable, that would be a clear ad hominem.
A suggestion that someone is biased (or a liar), however, goes directly to the potential truth of the argument itself. It's not an
irrelevant character attack - it's a direct attack on the likelihood that the argument is true that happens to also be an attack on the character of the arguer.
Since Riley has this feud, he's biased against the university president, and that would undercut our ability to trust what he says. If the argument had stopped at the intermediary conclusion that without independent verification, we shouldn't necessarily conclude that the speech was inflammatory, then it would be perfectly reasonable.
Now, that being said, I like your reworking of
(E). The conclusion here does two terrible things: 1) it assumes inflammatory is the only way to be inappropriate (what
(A) targets) AND 2) it suddenly switches from 'without independent verification we shouldn't trust Riley's claim' to 'without independent verification, Riley's WRONG'.
It's valid to be distrustful of Riley, but it's silly to assume that Riley must be wrong. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Your rewording of
(E) is getting close to the mark on targeting that. However, one could argue that "if we look closely" might qualify as "independent reasons".
Here's my rewording of your rewording
![Uber Geek :ugeek:](./images/smilies/icon_e_ugeek.gif)
"fails to adequately address the possibility that Riley might be correct about the speech, even if no independent reasons to corroborate him surface."
What do you think?